I wonder

[frualeydis]

Having just paid for a piece of hand woven striped fabric, which I intend to use as a petticoat for a new 18th century outfit I can't help but wonder why I feel such a need for 18th century outfits - it's not like I have anywhere to wear them.

Comments

[merastra.livejournal.com]

Heh. :-) I can't imagine either why you'd be interested in 18thC. I mean, it's not like there was a lot of recent 18thC dresses amongst prominent people in the costuming community or anything. ;-)

In all seriousness, I felt the peer pressure too.

[coen.livejournal.com]

I've seen two 18th century dresses on your website. One underdress, and one peasant's dress.

When I think of the 18th century, I think rococo, I think brightly coloured gigantic dresses, I think tricorne hats, and I think large powdered wigs.
What I saw on your website is quite different from that. Which is intresting.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

I'm going to make a new one soon, inspired by John Style's research on ordinary people's dress in England. The english were known for being very well dressed even among the peasants in those day and I suspect that it was the smae with the dutch in teh 18th century - at least printed cottons seem to have been prominent also in peasant dress.

/Eva

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Oh, forgot: Quite a lot of my costumes aren't on the web site, it's too much work writing about them and I'm also running out of space.

/Eva

[coen.livejournal.com]

So you meant to tell me that you made even more than what's on the website? I thought the numbers of outfits on the website was even to much for one person to make.
Where do you find the time, and the money, to do all this?

And one more questio; do you sew by hand or by machine. I always sew by hand. We have a sewing machine, and my girlfriend uses it all the time, but I can't get used to it. I sew by hand because I like doing that and it relaxes me. But of course, sewing by hand is very slow, and it takes me a lot of time to even make the simplest costumes.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

I sew both by hand and machine. The money is of course an issue, but since I've been doing this since 1993 I seldom am in the position that I have to buy all the fabric I need for a costume at a special time, but instead I have some of it already. I'm also quite good at finding sales and factory outlets. But of course I would like to have expensive silk damasks instead of wool sometimes.
And sewing is my only hobby (except football) so I can spend money on it. This also explains why I have the time, it's what I do when I'm not working. If you look at the web site you can see the costumes were made over quite a long time too.

/Eva

[therru.livejournal.com]

That's one of the reasons that I haven't got into 18th C clothing. I'd have nowhere to wear the stuff. (And nowhere to keep it; I've too little space as it is.)

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Since 18thC is suddenly so trendy (and why not? It's delicious) then obviously people are going to have to start having events for people to wear these gorgeous outfits to.

The re-enactments I grew up surrounded by were all 18thC, so I've always planned to get into it, but I don't have time right now. Terribly sad.

[seamstrix.livejournal.com]

Come over for a visit! We do lots of 18th century stuff here!

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

I'd love too, though not just for the re-enactment :)
They actually do that over here too, it's just that I have very little interest in portraying either a prostitute, a washer woman or an ordinary soldier's wife in sack cloth, as all they do is military re-enactment and they have a dull view of what ordinary people wore (it was more drab and poor in Sweden than in England) - Liking nice clothes is not considered serious, you know. The fact that I'm a pacifist does get in the way too; I can't joke about killing people.

/Eva